Dear Kaylee,

Three weeks ago, today, the day you were born, is a good experiment for your mommy and daddy to understand God’s love. It goes something like this.

When you came out of your mommy’s womb, those first few moments for your mommy and daddy were filled with:

terror- is everything going to be alright?

ecstatic joy- most exciting feeling ever

confusion- now what are we supposed to do with this tiny creature?

wonder- how can anything be so perfect as this?

But, most of all, what filled your daddy and mommy down to the bottom of their hearts into the depths of their souls is this-

love…

Kaylee, you didn’t do anything, but appear. You took your first breaths, wiggled for the first time, and made your first sounds, but that’s it. Guess what?

Your mommy will never love you any more than on that day. Same for your daddy.

Your mommy will never love you any less than that day. Daddy, too.

And you didn’t do a thing…

Why is this?

You can thank God.

The love your mommy and daddy had for you when they saw you for the first time is based on what God put into them when He made them. It is a love that doesn’t depend on anything you do or don’t do. It is a love that can’t be earned. It is a love that is based on the simple fact that you are Kaylee. Your mommy and daddy love you exactly who you are and nothing will ever make them love you more or less than on that day, July 12, 2013.

This is helpful for you to remember when you get to spend more and more time getting to know God. He is your loving Father in heaven who loves you exactly as you are because you are Kaylee. Nothing you do or don’t do is ever going to change His love. You don’t need to earn His love so you don’t have to try. You are his precious daughter and he adores you always. Never more or less that at this specific moment. God the Father loves like that.

And God is so smart that he wires mommys and daddys to love the same way. They just have to keep remembering what it was like that first day they saw you face to face.

There she is…Our precious Kaylee!

Love,

Grandpa

Dear Kaylee,

Well, enough is enough! Today (7/17/13) it will be two whole days since I have seen you:(

I want to snuggle my nose against your little neck and smell my little Kaylee…

This is not weird, as I used to do this with your mommy, too. The sweetest “baby-smell” in the world! Actually, most of us adults do the same thing if we hold babies. Either their necks or their hair, y’all just smell so fresh and clean!

When I was a little boy, your great-grandma used to smell me, and she would make these, “Sniff, sniff” sounds, and then she would say,

“Oh, it’s one of my own. Mommy knows the smell of one of her cubs!”

Great-Grandma Hanson is talking about how mommy bears like to sniff their cubs. And Great-Grandma Hanson had 5 cubs, so that was a lot of sniffing! The other four “cubs” are your great uncles: David, Steve, Jon and Andy. David is married to Shari and Andy is married to Peggy, so they are your great aunts. They are all so excited you have finally arrived!

Great-Grandpa Hanson is excited about you, too. He and Great-Grandma Hanson don’t live near us, so he has to only think of you by looking at your picture.  He lives in a place with lots of other great-grandparents and he says, “My great-granddaughter is the cutest!” He has a big picture of you that he showed to everyone and now it’s on his refrigerator with other pictures I sent. This is so he can remember his first little grandchild, Kaylee, every time he wants to get something to eat!

Great-grandma Hanson is excited and loves you, too! You are deep in her spirit and mind. I told her all about you, but she can’t really talk about you a lot, because she has a hard time remembering things. But, O, how she loved your mommy so very much and she has a shadow in her mind of her special granddaughter, Kristina, so I know that she loves you so very much, too, even if she can’t talk about it. In fact, if she were holding you right now, she might just sniff your neck and say,

“A great-grandma knows her cub!”

Love,

Grandpa